


to master the art of loneliness

by alaynes



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Doctor Who Spoilers, F/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, actually i should call this mostly linear narrative but shh, can't believe i have to tag this m/f, i blame mr dhawan for his lovely eyes and his soulful stares
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23096329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alaynes/pseuds/alaynes
Summary: Somehow, the Master had managed to tie every thought of Gallifrey back to himself. Even when they'd been the last two of their kind, her with the pinstripes and him with the drums, he hadn't managed that. But now—every time she thought of Gallifrey, of home, he was there. Making it, destroying it.And, by association: making her, destroying her.-The Doctor deals with the events of the Timeless Children, thinks about herself, the Master, her fam, and Gallifrey, introspects a lot, and adventures in between.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 81





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> say it with me kids: it's only au after there's a new episode! so enjoy what is now your canon for the next [looks at watch] 9... 9 m... 9 months??? bursts into tears
> 
> also: this is not strictly linear and that's for REASONS guys. it's not a LONG fic and it should make sense even though it isn't linear, BUT if it doesn't @ me and i shall stop writing immediately

She landed about a week after they should have according to the coordinates she’d preset, which had more to do with the TARDIS not cooperating than her. 

Well, sort of, anyway.

The fam were all delighted to see her of course, but they were all also uncharacteristically serious—or was that her? One or the other. They’d gone to a cafe to chat instead of heading straight to the TARDIS, and when they were there with their coffees and teas and strawberry milks (no prizes for guessing who had what), Graham turned to her with a very serious expression, and said, “What happened, Doc? Really, this time?”

Before she could answer (truthfully! Truthfully now! Once, you see, not very long ago at all, she had thought that what they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them. She’d been wrong, and she knew that _now_ —them being unaware of the danger she posed didn’t mean she wasn’t dangerous. It only meant they never knew to protect themselves)(what was worse, making a soldier of someone who never should have been, or leaving your doors wide open for passing daleks? She was the dalek, the doors, and the your)—

Before she could answer, Ryan interrupted, right on cue as if they’d practiced this. “‘Cause you told us about your planet, but when we got there—it was destroyed. And the Master...” he trailed off, looking awkwardly at Graham.

She took a deep breath. “I know I haven’t been entirely honest with you in the past. That’s been for several reasons. Not least of which is that it’s really hard to talk about.” She took another few long sips of her milkshake, then set it down, maybe with a bit more force than she’d like. Yaz looked startled. “The Master was, like I said, an old friend. And we went different ways, but there’s a bit more to it than that. I can’t tell you all of it as it’d take too long, but... let’s just say he’s been trying to destroy me for a long time.”

Graham frowned. “Did he die? When you used that—”

“Death Particle? Yes. No. I don’t know, I had to run, Ko Sharmus didn’t have much time, and I had to get to a TARDIS. It’s possible he escaped, he usually does, but... I don’t know, really.”

Yaz swallowed. “What if he comes back?” 

The panic that had set in from the day she’d saved Shelley’s life (or maybe before that or maybe before _that_ ) had formed a moat around the place in her hearts where these three—her family—lived. Except it was a moat of attack, not defence. You jumped in and found skeletons all the way to the bottom. She’d sonic’d the gates waterproof, though. Her family wasn’t something she would ever risk, not again, not like she had this time. She was certain about _this_ one thing, if about nothing else, and currently she _was_ sure of nothing else. “Even if he does, he won’t hurt you. I won’t let him win.” _Not again_. 

“What about Gallifrey? Your planet?”

The word came out easier than she had thought it would. “Dead. All of them, gone. The Death Particle would have destroyed whatever organic life had remained.” The moment sat in her palm, twinging between her thenars and her median nerve, in the _possibility_ of touch. She’d felt the presence of that detonator switch like she felt Time. She’d felt what came after, too; she’d been dead at least once before, after all. It was not so different from her memories of Gallifrey, the first time around—she had hesitated less then.

Graham was the first to find his speech again. “I’m sorry, Doc.”

She forced a smile. “Nothing that hasn’t happened before. I’m fine, really, I am.” 

Yaz leaned forward, digging her elbows into the table and pressing down till one of the screws turned ever so slightly in its place. “You can tell us if you’re not fine, too. You don’t have to pretend. We’re here for you.”

Her smile eased, just a little, and she let them put their hands over hers. “Thanks, guys. My fam.” The waters receded, just a little.

* * *

Once, when she’d been the loneliest man in the universe, she had begged the Master not to die. _It’s only a bullet_ , she’d said, _just regenerate_.

The thing about being alone was that you would take any chance not to be. But he would have hated it, she knew that. More than Missy had, perhaps. Imprisoned with her, her doing her best to—oh, _help_ him, when the last thing he wanted was help. She’d done that later, try to help him, try to make him a better person; hadn’t worked, but that was the Master for you. There was a human saying: the more things change, the more they stay the same (she’d been there when Karr said that. She would even say she’d _inspired_ it, but that might be bragging). The Master was living(?) proof.

He’d never changed, had he? And he’d never change. 

The Doctor tried to believe that she was cleverer now than she had been before. Oh, there was a time she’d give _anyone_ a second chance, even a Dalek with a change of heart. She’d done that, actually. But where had it landed her? She’d taken chances with her friends, and they’d ended up dead or converted or lost to her forever. She’d given chances to an old friend, and she’d betrayed her at the first opportunity. She’d given chances to some old enemies, too, and got nothing out of it but fire and pain and death.

So, this time, she’d decided, no chances. Not when her _giving chances_ meant risking innocent lives. No questioning and believing and hoping; she’d been through enough of that. She knew where she stood now. 

The Master had found her anyway, and he’d said, _everything that you think you know is a lie_. 

* * *

It was a party. Hakim had just been promoted, and to celebrate Najia had called their family and close friends over to the Khans’ place for snacks and chatting. The Doctor hadn’t been able to spot any of Yaz’s other friends, even though Najia had invited herself, Ryan and Graham (the Fam in family, if you would)(Graham had groaned out loud at that one). It was a great party, and she’d always loved a good party, so she’d shown up half an hour early and blown up half the balloons herself! Hakim had been pretty impressed. Then Sonya had brought out the pump.

Currently, she was trying her hand at magic. “Pick a card,” she said. Talat, one of Sonya’s friends, picked a card. The Doctor squinted at the little blue and white pattern at the back, then shook her head. “Pick another card.”

Talat picked another card. 

“Ace of spades?”

Talat flipped it around; it was a joker. The Doctor frowned, turning her deck over to see where the ace of spades had got to. 

“I don’t think you’re very good at this.”

None of the cards she was turning over were the ace of spades. “The jokers aren’t _supposed_ to be in the deck! It must be the deck that’s no good. I used to be a magician, you know!” 

Najia’s friend Roheen turned her head at that one. “A magician before she became a doctor? How odd.”

Yaz, who was dodging between people who had all apparently not seen her in _ages_ , popped into the conversation to say, “It was a part time thing.”

Roheen said, “I didn’t know you spoke Urdu, Yasmin?”

Yaz had apparently not realised that they were not speaking English. “I’ve been practicing,” she said, then pretended someone was calling her at the door. 

The Doctor said, “Pick a card?” Najia and Roheen were now watching her. The missing ace slipped out from her sleeve, and they exchanged another _look_. “Okay, so maybe I’m a bit out of practice.” She should get another coat like she used to have, with all the useful pockets. Great for magic tricks. The hoodie didn’t have nearly enough, even enhanced as her pockets tended to be.

As Talat was trying again, someone on the other side of the room screamed. Ryan, who was hanging out on the couch with Sonya’s friends, snapped his head up. Graham, who’d just been sitting with Hakim and an older man talking about the new VorMote, did the same. A moment later, Yaz appeared from the kitchen, eyes wide and posture alert. 

It was one of Najia’s neighbour’s daughters; she had dropped a plateful of chutney onto her new-looking dress, and looked on the verge of tears. 

The shout that followed hurt even the Doctor’s eardrums. “Yasmin Khan!” Najia was up and across the room before anyone else could think of moving, wad of tissues in one hand. 

The girl’s mother (something with S?) was apologising about the koftas on the floor. “Misbah, you silly child!” 

Yaz had brought some more tissues and was handing them to Misbah. Half of the room was watching now, and she seemed terribly embarrassed. Najia was shaking her head. “Don’t worry about it, Sarah. It’s all Yasmin’s fault as is.”

Yaz frowned up at her mother, getting off her knees. “How on earth’s it my fault?” 

“If you hadn’t insisted on these paper plates!” Sarah was trying to get between Yasmin and Najia now, apologetic look on, but they were no longer paying attention.

“Plastic’s really bad for the environment!” Yaz insisted, collecting the koftas in one hand and scooping up what chutney she could with a few tissues.

On the couch, Sonya scoffed. “Like _you’ve_ ever cared for the environment before.”

“I did too care!” Yaz was glaring at her sister sharp enough she could cut one of those koftas in two. Ryan, who had been looking increasingly uncomfortable for the last few minutes, said, “We should all do our bit, yeah? We’ve only got one planet.”

Ryan and Yaz exchanged looks. Clearly no one had anything to say to that; in a few seconds, conversations picked back up, and Misbah and Sarah went off to clean up. Yaz and Najia were in the corner, arguing about plastic versus paper. 

The Doctor cleared her throat and went back to her cards, hearts no longer in it. 

Later, aboard the TARDIS, Ryan and Yaz took a moment to chat between themselves while the Doctor was meant to be in the kitchens, hunting for something to eat. Graham had decided to stay the night in his flat, get some cleaning up done. “The problem with being gone so long is, Doc,” he’d said, “when I get back I’ve got layers on layers of dust all over my place! Now, if there’s some alien that eats dust, we should go to _that_ planet, eh?”

They weren’t going anywhere, just parked for now; he’d join them in the morning. She’d told Ryan and Yaz to take the night to go home, too, but they’d wanted to take the Doctor somewhere. “We’ll show you around for once,” Ryan had said, and really, she hadn’t had the hearts to tell him she’d seen most of Sheffield before, seen its past and its future, maybe even seen a few different Sheffields. So she’d said something about finding a few snacks first, and headed off to the kitchens.

Yaz was saying, “They don’t understand. Not really. Everyone knows about global warming, pollution and all that, but they don’t _know_.”

“They can’t know. That’s the problem, right? Like I’ve been saying, we’ve changed. They haven’t.” 

She knew that they’d been thinking about it—Ryan in a way that Yaz wasn’t. Yaz lived for the adventure; she reminded her of Amy that way, or Rose. Once she’d decided she wanted to go off, she was off... and she had the Doctor, didn’t she? The Doctor would always save the day, save the Fam, save the world. (Once, in a world that had never been real, Amy had sat in the dust that had once been Rory’s body and asked her, _then what is the point of you_? There were no answers to that one; was there any point to her? To anyone?)

The Doctor had felt since Gallifrey that one day she’d be letting Yaz down badly. Letting her down in a way she couldn’t let down Ryan or Graham, because they didn’t believe in her the same way. (Years later, once she’d disappointed already, she’d told Amy to stop believing in her. And then she had.)

Yaz was saying, “We have to _try_ , though. We can’t just let people go on like nothing’s changed—and it doesn’t _have_ to happen, we can stop it. The Doctor said time’s always in flux—”

“Yeah, whatever that means.” There was a long pause, punctuated only by the quad-beat of her hearts and the sounds of breathing. “People aren’t going to get it just because we say the world’s gonna end, are they? Face it, Yaz, we’re alone now. Other people... they’re not us.”

Yaz said, “We’ve got each other.”

The Doctor turned around and returned to the kitchens.

* * *

Ryan loved Arcateen V, as she’d known he would. 

He’d said it about fifteen minutes after they’d landed here, looking around with eyes bright at the neons that they didn’t have words for in human languages, holding a fruity drink that tended to make most humanoid hair stand up at its ends. He said, “I love this place.”

The Doctor said, “I knew you would!”

There was an artists’ convention ongoing at the moment, and she’d figured it was the perfect time to bring them here. They’d fashioned a convention ground on one of the top levels, about four spans in diameter, and set up little stalls (for relative definitions of _little_ and _stall_ ) around the place, with juice bars and snack shops in between. After a quick tour, the Doctor had handed the three of them credit bars. “Remember, don’t buy anything that looks like it’s got a mouth, ‘cause it _might_ try to eat you. Scams. And don’t stare too long at anything pink! Meet back at the juice bar in an hour!”

They’d all gone their own way, Graham towards what looked like Renaissance record players, Ryan to a holographic art display, and Yaz into the live sculpture booth. 

The Doctor had headed to the juice bar, where an Aplan was mixing drinks. She was sucking on a bubblegum pink fizzy drink from a straw that was shaped like a star (meant for people with a good bit more lung capacity than she had—she was nothing if not persistent, though)(The bartender nodded, looking impressed; had she been speaking out loud? Again?) when she saw the poetry display. 

Yaz found her there, standing inside a poem, drink abandoned. “What is this thing?” she asked.

“Multi-dimensional poetry. 28th century poets decided that just reading poetry wasn’t as immersive. That was the 28th century, all about immersion. I’m not the biggest fan of the genre, bit intrusive for my taste, but here... they’ve done it well.” A void yawned around her, the poem stretching its maw through and across her, before sending her into darkness. From that darkness, other mouths bloomed, empty and consuming. The more they ate, the more they grew—that was how holes worked. Darkness sprouted in the darkness, deceiving your eyes and pulling away sound, like being in a vacuum.

When it ended, Yaz had tears in her eyes. “What was that?”

The Doctor couldn’t look away from the empty space where the poem had projected from. Surprisingly apt, that blank screen after it was done. “Nothing. Literally, ‘Nothing’; that’s the title. It’s an old earth poem, actually. Not the best translation.” But the feeling of it was clear as crystal, familiar and aching. When she looked up, Yaz was looking at her hand, which was pressed to the place between her hearts. When had she done that?

“Doc—”

She was _serious_ about the whole talking about your feelings thing, she was! And she was doing her best keeping her companions informed and aware of the dangers around her, as best she could. But—not quite at this moment, maybe. 

“Oh, they’ve got ‘Fountains of Autopia’! We should try that! Come on, Yaz! Now, mind your hair, this can get quite wet.

* * *

Once, when she was younger and knew only to do her best (consequences, you see, Leela, were for someone not as clever, someone without imagination), the Doctor had saved Gallifrey from Vardans and Sontarans who’d hatched a plot to take over it—not a great plot, she wouldn’t say, but with just enough brute force and power that it would have worked were it not for a good deal of help. 

To do that, she’d become the President and pretended to be on their side. If it wasn’t her, she had reasoned, they would have found someone else, some other renegade who decided they liked the idea of power over all of Time. Oh, good old Kelner.

She’d yelled commands and taken the chance to lord over Borusa (if only the Master could have seen her then—no, no, she wasn’t thinking of the Master—) and she’d been clever and distracting, and after she saved the Time Lords she pretended to forget all about it—best to close that chapter before they went about getting any ideas about her being President in any real way. Goodness, no. She wasn’t meant for that. (She’d always hated staying onplanet, anyway.)

And she did all that, you see, after the Time Lords had stripped her friends of their memories and banished her to earth without her TARDIS functioning and with barely a hint of her time sense. She had done it because whoever took over Gallifrey would have power more than anyone imaginable. 

Or had she done it because it was home?

* * *

“Kambalana Minor! One of two twin planets in this system that _used_ to orbit around each other. A _tenuous_ balance, just held together for thousands of years before it collapsed. Kambalana Major is uninhabitable for now, its gravity is _far_ too strong. Also, lava fields everywhere. But Kambalana Minor! Beautiful place, super friendly inhabitants, and they make the _best_ apple pies. For some definition of apple.”

She leaned into the last line with explanatory enthusiasm (just a _hint_ of sheepishness), but of course, there was no one listening. 

No deflating, though! So what if her fam weren’t there? So what if _no one_ was? This was the point—the purpose. Loneliness was just a state of mind, and she was a Time Lord (ish). Why did you talk to other people? What made you do that? To get to know them, to learn more about them. Well, she no longer knew herself, and _so_ it followed that she should be able to talk to herself without any of that pesky abandonment anxiety. Who’d abandoned her? She was the one on her own for an adventure.

Solo adventure: let’s go, fam! 

Wait.

Solo adventure: let’s go, Doctor! _You can do this._

It was over an hour later, when she had been captured, tied up and stuffed into a make-do prison cell that she considered that there may be other, more pragmatic reasons _not_ to solo adventure. Reasons that involved ‘having someone to get you out when you were arrested for no reason’! It wasn’t _her_ fault that woman had come onto her; how was she to know not to flirt with the local duke’s daughter? In fact, how was she to know offering her an apple _was_ flirting? 

Well, it’d be alright. The ‘prison’ was little more than a converted barn, and apart from smelling a little like grass (and _apples_ ), it was alright. She’d been in worse prisons, not least of which was very, very recently. Eventually they’d have to get her out, even if just to execute her (though surely they wouldn’t be doing any executing just for a bit of harmful flirting), and she’d make her clever escape then. No one to show off to, unfortunately, but she’d just have to make do with herself.

This was the _problem_. Not not being able to show off, not even having help breaking out. She was entirely too dependent on the fact of _having company_ to be alright without it. 

This was the important thing about the state of being alone: you could not despise it so much that you would do anything not to be. Being alone didn’t _have_ to mean being lonely! Being the only one didn’t have to mean she didn’t have a family and friends and people who cared about her, as her fam had reminded her time and time again. 

Once, the Master had taken the dead and turned them into Cybermen. Bit of a running theme now, that one. And Clara Oswald had looked her in the eye and said that if he’d ever let _this creature_ live, that everything that had happened that day, it was on him. The Doctor had been quite prepared to kill her that day (maybe because Clara was there; Rassilon knew she’d never been able to any other time)—that she hadn’t _had to_ in the end was rather lucky, because it was entirely possible her fingers would simply never make necessary contact with the switch.

(That day, Missy had told her that Gallifrey was _right_ there, returned to its original state. She hadn’t gone looking. Maybe she’d been cleverer, then.)

They pulled her out of her cell at sunset, and dragged her in front of a fire. She fanned the flames and escaped, and her accidental girlfriend for the day teared up as she apologised (rather awkwardly) and said goodbye. “Can’t I come with you?” Mhiri asked as she tried to shut the TARDIS doors.

“Sorry, Mhiri,” she said, and left.

 _That_ was the point. Not being so lonely as to make bad decisions. If she wanted to ruin lives, she would do so knowing that at the very, very least, it wasn’t a decision born of sheer fucking loneliness.

* * *

She dropped Jack on Arcateen V.

“You know,” she said, pulling levers and pressing buttons to get to where he wanted to go. I met a great artist on Arcateen V once. I think she wanted to paint me, but there was a bit of uh... misunderstanding, let’s say? We both ended up quite embarrassed, actually. Had to get a new bowtie. I wore bowties then!”

“Do you always talk this much?”

“I talk a perfectly normal amount, thank you.” She looked up as the console came to a stop, the ship stabilising beneath them. Jack looked around too, as though memorising the place. The guilt hit, just under her breastbone, then disappeared. This wasn’t the last time she’d see him. After all, they were both immortals. 

“Here we are, then.”

“Thanks for the ride,” Jack said, not a touch of sarcasm to be found, and turned to throw the doors open. 

Outside, lights in neons that you’d never find on earth lit up the view, glinting off the tendrils of a passing family. A monorail screeched past somewhere above them, and below the urban blocks of the planet rose in coral and cerulean and cobalt and all the colours that started with c. Ryan would love this place. All she wanted was to close the doors. Instead, she joined him at the entrance for a proper goodbye (for now). She could do that, at least. 

“I’ll see you around, then?” 

Jack stepped out of the TARDIS, stretching as if it had been days, not minutes. Just as she thought he was leaving, he turned and said, “You’re not alone, Doc. I hope you know that.”

* * *

Once, when she was younger and wore guilt like she wore pinstripes, Captain Jack Harkness in the form of a giant face (okay, that was a bit mean. The Boekind were naturally big! And Jack wasn’t your average Boekind, but _still_ ) had told her that she wasn’t alone.

He’d been projecting into her mind, and she could still hear it, remember the half-whispered voice (telepathy didn’t come in whispers; that voice was mere testament to his exhaustion, to his age, to his weakness), the _I am the last of my kind, as you are the last of yours_. She’d been keenly aware of that; perhaps too keenly. If he survived, she’d thought then, two faces and a few hundred years younger, then she didn’t have to be the only one who knew what that felt like. Even if he wasn’t like her, not a Time Lord, not from her planet, nothing like her species (ha, ha, ha). But what difference did thinking make? _Everything has its time_ , he’d telepathy-whispered to her, and he was right. Probably. 

His last words, though, had been out loud. 

They had gone like this: _You are not alone_. 

Now, she hadn’t _believed_ him then. She hadn’t been the most believing sort, back then (Except of course, ‘then’ implied a change in state. So that begged the question: was she now?), and she’d thought that all her people were dead. Martha had asked her, hadn’t she, about her planet, just after that? Told her that he didn’t talk about himself nearly enough, not _really_. Yaz and Martha would get along brilliantly. Probably. 

Anyway. The Face of Boe had told her once in the far future (depending on whom you asked) that she was not alone. He’d waited for her, supposedly, just to give her this final message before he sacrificed himself to save New New York. She ought to give him a call, tell him he needn’t bother waiting in terminable agony—Jack had given her that little message himself.

Once, she’d met a man called Professor Yana, except it had been her oldest friend in the universe, and she had quite accidentally given him just what he needed to take over the world (a world, anyway). She hadn’t been alone then. 

Except of course, ‘then’ implied a change in state. 

(Was she now?)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor runs into the Master, and the Doctor has a different, unrelated run-in with a head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i PROMISE this will be like, 4 chapters, TOPS. 
> 
> also: you may have seen the rating change also, which is because i realised that the themes herein are like, definitely not g for general audiences, and also there is swearing, so!

The Master jerked awake as she emptied a bucket of water (well, water-ish) into his face. 

She’d found him on a colony planet, about to be hunted down by a pack of very angry Meep, probably for something he’d done. She could understand the sentiment, but unfortunately, she wanted the Master alive—no, that sounded bad. She _promised_ she was not turning into a Fifth Empire holodrama villain, she only wanted to talk.

Still bad.

 _Fortunately_ for him, she had a very friendly face that would encourage anyone to negotiate! And some very fast legs. She’d gotten him out of there and to her TARDIS, then tied him to a chair, which she maintained was necessary, and had nothing to do with him paralysing her the last time they’d met. That the ‘rope’ was paralysis boundaries that also coincidentally glowed white only had to do with the make and model of these things. Then she’d noticed that all the green on him was actually _blood_ , and gone to get it out of her hair. She’d kept the bloodied hoodie on, though. It was a nice touch, if she did say so herself. (And _still_ bad.)

The water, admittedly, was not necessary, _but_ there was something very satisfying about seeing him shocked awake like that. 

“Hoping to melt me, Doctor?” he asked, once the surprise of being suddenly woken had melted (ha ha) into recognition. 

She ignored him. “Last one in every race at school?” she asked, placing one foot on the rim of the bucket and balancing on it. 

The Master glared at her, looking massively put upon, considering that the last time they’d met he’d tried to create a new breed of monster with which to take over the universe with. “Was I supposed to remember every detail of that blasted file? Why humans insist on filling documents on documents with all these _insipid_ details—”

“Makes a pretty poor spy if you can’t keep up your cover. Nevermind spy _master_.”

He had the audacity to look bored. “I seem to remember maintaining my cover for just as long as I needed. Do you know how many _times_ I was tempted to blow my plan, tell you everything _just_ so you would stop talking? But, alas. I had to be sure you knew Gallifrey was restored and well before I broke the news. It just wouldn’t have the same _oomph_ otherwise.”

She grit her teeth, ready to shout—and turned around, shaking her head. She had things to ask of him; she wasn’t about to let him bait her into getting angry. Flipping the bucket upside down, she sat on it, elbows on knees, facing him. “That’s just willpower. Doesn’t say anything about your spy skills.”

“Is there a point to this?”

 _He_ was one to talk. Was there a point to half the things he did? “We didn’t _have_ races at school.”

* * *

“Doctor! Over here!” Ryan shouted from the next room. As if replying, the Antrayk head in the Doctor’s hands screamed back.

“I’ve _kind of_ got my hands full!” she shouted back once it had stopped. The stupid head in her hand kept swirling side to side, though _how_ it managed to do that when it didn’t have any limbs at the moment was beyond her (okay, no, it wasn’t; the Antrayk had muscles on the bottom parts of their, well, what humans would call necks, but was like an extra pair of limbs. Sort of. Ish. They were _really_ flexible little heads, which, she supposed, they _had_ to be if they wanted to survive without a body for any amount of time). She’d _heard_ that Antrayk heads were hard to keep a hold on, but she hadn’t expected all the swirling and biting attempts and _screaming_. “Graham! Yaz! Are you _done yet_?”

Graham popped his head out of the doorway to her right. “No, and we could really use some help here, Doc!” 

She screamed as the head somehow twisted around and almost bit her on the wrist. “It’s not that hard, Graham, just follow the instructions!” 

Antrayk venom was very dangerous to humans—it moved fast, and it would paralyse nerves and stop the heart if given enough time. Now, it was dangerous for _her_ , too, but she had two hearts and a genetic inability to stay dead. She’d be fine. Probably. Unfortunately, this meant she was the only one who could hold onto the head while Graham and Yaz tried to activate the container the head went in.

“These instructions don’t make any sense!” Yaz shouted back. 

“Use the sonic!” It _should_ be with them, shouldn’t it? The head had scared her into dropping it earlier when it got out of its box. “Just turn on the seal and automated locking system—mmmmmmph—” The Antrayk spat, and she only just managed to clamp her mouth shut to avoid the spit going in ( _gross_!). It landed just to the right of her mouth, on her cheek. “Do it quickly, it’s toxin’s in me!” 

“I’ve got it!” Yaz shouted back, and the Doctor ran into the room, her grip on the head as tight as she could make it. The thing shrieked at her, clearly aware that it was going right back where it had come from. Yaz pulled Graham out of spitting distance as she stuffed the head into the container, holding it down while Graham sonic’d the container shut. The seal noise went off, a little bell sound, and the lid turned green.

She leaned her palms on her knees, panting. “We should’ve listened to the warden. Never thought I’d say that, not one for listening to people.”

Graham rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we know.” 

She straightened up, wiping at the side of her mouth. “Ugh, I’m gonna have to detox. Antrayk venom.” She wrinkled her nose, staring at the residue on her hands. “At least it’s back where it’s supposed to be,” she said. Yaz and Graham nodded, looking around. Something was wrong, wasn’t there? Something was missing, and it was on the tip of her tongue, and it wasn’t any of her teeth or the roof of her mouth. She had a feeling—

There was a loud screeching noise from the control chamber (probably the gates; she’d set them shut to keep the locals out before she’d realised the Antrayk was deadly and that closing the gates activated the guard mechanisms. Ryan had been—) followed by a shout.

Graham was out of the room in the moment before she and Yaz realised. “Ryan!” 

* * *

“We didn’t _have_ races at school.”

He leaned forward with his whole back, which _had_ to be painful given the way the restrictor cords had bound his chest and arms, but didn’t seemed troubled. “Are we talking about school? I would have thought it would be too painful, given that it’s, you know.” He grinned, beatific. “Gone.” 

She was going to stay cool. She was absolutely going to stay cool! This was a conversation where she did _not_ get angry and yell and punch him in the face (again). The problem with the Master was that he made her blood boil whenever he opened his mouth, which made not punching him very difficult. She kept her tone flippant, said, “We’re talking about running.”

“You were always better at me there, Doctor,” he said, eyes wide, hands moving like he wanted to gesture if it weren’t for the cords wrapped around him.

“Thought you didn’t do such a bad job back there.”

The Master reared his head back like an unhappy horse. Drama queen. “Bloody _Meeps_!”

She laughed, getting off the bucket. “I’m sure you did something to make them that angry.” Or had they been angrier because of her? She knew she hadn’t quite _helped_ the matter.

He frowned, apparently remembering where he’d been. “How did you find me?”

She looked past the tree line, where bright green blood glowed on the bark of trees and had dripped off his coat to form a little trail. Hansel and Gretel, turned all the way up. “Followed the blood.” He said nothing. She shrugged. “Was passing by, heard the Meeps were mad at someone who sounded a bit like you, decided to look in.”

“And decided to _save_ me?”

She grinned. “Something like that.” 

* * *

They played skip rope with the ship’s defence bots for a bit, before she realised (she _really_ hated the obvious—she was _always_ missing it. That was the problem with being clever; you were always looking for better solutions and forgot the obvious ones) that they’d _probably_ stop once the gates were back open. She sonic’d them back, which deactivated the mechanisms, and they headed back outside. The ships’ warden and captain were furious, but that wasn’t surprising, given the givens. 

“Sorry about that,” she said, sheepish. She’d given the lot of them a lecture about creature cruelty just before this. Not that she’d said anything wrong! She stood by her words, they just—didn’t _necessarily_ apply in this situation. 

“We’ve put everything back the way it was,” Yaz said. She’d seemed a bit taken by the captain earlier, actually. Unfortunately, they’d _probably_ nipped that before it begun when they attacked the guards and almost destroyed the ship via Antrayk. “The Antrayk is sealed back in again.”

“Your defence bots may be...” she trailed off, blinking. Ryan and Graham were suddenly far above her, staring down. Her chest throbbed, and her legs were in the wrong place. “Compromised.”

* * *

She came back out of the TARDIS with his coat, rummaging inside the pockets one after the other. “Why do you have so much stuff? It’s impossible to find—” Then she remembered that old helmet that was stretching her hoodie out _as she spoke_ , and shut her mouth. “Aha!” The TCE came out of the front pocket along with a pointy little ball. She stared at it for a second before realising.

“You compressed a Meep! How could you!”

The Master rolled his eyes. “They’re one of the most cunning creatures in the galaxy.”

She pouted at the compressed Meep. He was right, of course; she herself had recently had their very not cute laser rifles pointed at her. But the compressed Meep had big eyes that were completely nonthreatening (considering) and big pointy ears and fur that just about covered its ugly little hands. She held the Meep up to her face, ignoring the part about how that was _literally_ a dead body. It was a bit like one of the toys and figures that came with kids’ meals. “But they’re so cute!” 

“It was _going_ to kill me!” She harrumphed, setting the Meep down with the TCE and moving to stand before him. The Master looked up at her, eyes widening as she grew closer. He opened his mouth and wet his lips, before asking, “What do you plan to do with me, then?” When she didn’t reply, he went on. “You could have let the Meeps kill me, but you didn’t. Why not?”

She scoffed. “Please, you would have got away. You always do.”

He hummed. “Let’s pretend that I would have. You decided to interfere, and saved me from those oversized rats, and tied me up. So what do you do with me now?” He smirked. “Or is this what you’re into this time? Tying up? I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

She frowned down at him. It was unfair how easily he could see through her. As honest as she was working on being with her fam, it was still nice to have a front to fall back on—or maybe they only pretended to believe her. Who knew. “I _said_ I was just passing through,” she lied. “Saw you here, wanted to have a chat.”

“Do you expect me to believe that, Doctor?” He leaned upward as much as he could, eyes boring into hers. “What _could_ it be, I wonder? Are you going to keep me locked in the TARDIS? Drag me around like one of your pets? Or is it going to be the vault again?” She looked away. 

(It wasn’t that she hadn’t considered it, but—she wasn’t who she used to be. She had been... kinder, then. She didn’t trust herself that much anymore. Besides, they both knew how _that_ had worked out.)

“Or are you here to finish what you _didn’t_ start on Gallifrey?”

“I’m not going to kill you,” she said, and was surprised to find how true it was. After Gallifrey, she’d thought— _but_ if she’d been capable of it, she would have pressed that switch herself, wouldn’t she? Was it herself she had saved, or her planet, or him? The skin over her thumb tingled; the absence of that detonator in her hand itched like a phantom limb in her time-sense.

“And how will you explain to your little pets, the next time I destroy their planet, that you let me live? Your actions have _consequences_ , Doctor,” he said, as if she didn’t _know_ that. 

* * *

“Your defence bots may be...” she trailed off, blinking. Ryan and Graham were suddenly far above her, staring down. Her legs throbbed. “Compromised.”

The world went black.

* * *

Once, when she was young and innocent, she’d held someone’s head between her hands (not by the ears, though) and kissed the living daylights out of them. Or maybe it was a mutual kissing-the-living-daylights-out-of. He’d pulled back and touched the corner of his mouth. Hers had been swollen. “You’ve got something on your mouth,” he said. She didn’t remember that part. Her hearts were beating an off-beat, one-miss-two-miss. He looked pained for a second.

Her chest hurt, where a heart would be. Maybe it was because she missed him. They went back to kissing.

That wasn’t allowed, of course. Gallifreyans were beyond such physical assertions of... whatever it was that kissing was. Affection, maybe; Rassilon knew most of them barely knew what affection meant. Physicality (they were higher beings than _that_ ). They had looms for children, after all, they weren’t slaves to biology, and why else would anyone want to do all of that with skin and hands? (Open secrets, really. She’d _worn_ the Matrix, more than once, why anyone was expected to believe Time Lords were really above anything at all—) 

Still, on the record: Time Lords didn’t do that, they used their brilliance and their time sense and their advanced telepathy to flirt astronomically. 

She’d done it anyway. (She’d also done a good bit of astronomic flirting, but she _maintained_ that he started it.)

His head was floating in her vision. He was smiling. He looked a bit different than she remembered, didn’t he? “Doctor,” he said. She tried to smile, but her mouth wasn’t quite working. Was something wrong with it? She tried to say his name, but her lip only wobbled uselessly. Her chest beat that uneven beat. 

They’d kissed more recently, too, hadn’t they? That had been a sad, sad day.

* * *

She woke in the TARDIS, top floor leftmost corridor, 3rd room from the right, on a stretcher had left fabric marks on the backs of her arms. They were still on the ship; it was in orbit now, on a different moon. Why were they still on the ship? In fact, why was she asleep? She didn’t like to nap (nevermind sleep—she must have been out for at least an hour if they had _moved_ ) while the TARDIS was parked somewhere uncertain. She _always_ parked in the Vortex. 

Her chest hurt something nasty, and her mouth felt swollen and stiff. She experimentally smacked her lips together. It worked, so she tried to sit up and blood rushed to her head all at once, settling like an unhappy reverse avalanche. She pressed a hand to her skull, groaning.

Graham was dozing by the entrance to the room, but snapped awake at that. “Doc!” He stood up, a bit too quickly by the looks of it. “Are you alright?”

She nodded past the pain, blinking to clear her vision. “What happened?”

“Just lie back down for a few, you might need it.” He stepped out for a moment, calling into the corridor, “Ryan! The Doc’s up.”

“How long have I been out for?” There was a glass of water placed on a recess in the walls, and she chugged the whole thing down, then put the glass back. The TARDIS refilled it for her; she chugged that one down, too. “What happened?”

“You gave us all a bit of a scare,” Graham said, standing awkwardly by her bedside. “You collapsed—one minute you were talking, the next second you were on the floor.”

Ah. The Antrayk venom. She’d forgotten all about detoxifying, hadn’t she? It must have stopped one of her hearts. Or—she checked her hands, pulled at the ends of her hair. Her voice was alright, too. Still her. Even then, that was careless. If she had, for some reason, not regenerated—if she’d fallen into a healing coma, and who knew when she’d wake up from one of those... She could have left her fam stranded a few millennia from their time, on a ship unknown to them, with nothing to their name. Well, there was the TARDIS, which would take care of them as long as they were inside, and there were some credit chips to be found, but—

“You’re awake!” Ryan said, and she looked up. She hadn’t realised he’d walked in, lost in her thoughts. Her mind was still a bit slow from the whole being unconscious bit, apparently. “You scared us.” 

“I’m sorry. The Antrayk venom had gotten to my system, but I didn’t realise it would spread so—” Yaz interrupted her with a hug, their shoulders bumping together like _bones_. She patted Yaz’s back, trying not to grimace. “I’m alright, really.” The gesture was... very nice, but—she’d rather do with a little less hugging, just for now. 

Yaz let her go. “You were out for _hours_! You’ve never done that.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever even seen you sleep, apart from that first time.”

The TARDIS had refilled the water; she chugged that one down, too. She could almost feel it waking her insides up. “What happened? I don’t remember anything after that.” She checked her chest, squirming, thinking of the odd dream she’d had; only two beats there. But her hearts were definitely back to normal now. Which one of them knew how to do _that_? “My heart’s been restarted.” 

“We didn’t know what to do. The ship was all humans, and you’re, uh, not. We thought we should get you back to the TARDIS and maybe that’d help.”

She nodded. “That was good.” The TARDIS was the safest place for her to be, anyway. Even if she _had_ died, that would help make sure that no one else got to her body. A Time Lord’s body could be used very dangerously—and she wasn’t even a Time Lord. The image flashed through her mind; those Children, in that experiment room, while Tecteun injected them with syringe after syringe, extracting genetic material, modifying their bodies, testing methods of death. 

“We tried to call the medic, but even he didn’t know what to do. And then...” Ryan and Yaz exchanged uncomfortable looks. The Doctor raised an eyebrow. 

“What?” 

Yaz said, “You started talking.”

* * *

She leaned down to look him in the eyes. “You will _not_ meet your death at my hands.”

He bared his teeth, almost electric in his rage. “That’s too bad, love. Because I promise I won’t stay dead for anyone else.” 

* * *

“You started talking.”

She frowned. That was—probably not good. “What did I say?”

“At first you were mumbling—it didn’t make much sense—then you started giving us instructions. I could’ve sworn you were awake, they were that specific. Told us where to find your tools and how to lock the TARDIS down and all.”

She thought of her dream, the way the Master had said her name, and let out a long, shaky exhale. Had he been watching her? How had he known? Or had she reached out, dreaming herself into unconscious telepathy? Or—no, no, he must have known. Somehow. And contacted her, making her dream of him, projecting his voice through her to—

But _why_?

She shook her head, closed the doors on him; it wouldn’t have mattered, after all, if her fam hadn’t got her to the TARDIS in time or followed the instructions right. Restarting a heart was no easy task, after all. She said, hoping they both understood and didn’t understand the gravity of the situation (oh _come on_ , Doctor, you were _going_ to be truthful, weren’t you?), “You guys saved my life.”

Ryan grinned. “Come on, Doctor. How many times have you saved ours?”

Yaz patted her hand. “You can depend on us.”

Graham added, “Though maybe next time leave us something written down, yeah? The sleep talking was a bit...”

She laughed, ignoring the way her chest twinged. Heart must have been out for longer than usual if it still hurt; she’d have to take a day or two off, recuperate. She could drop them off in Sheffield for a couple days, park in the Vortex, take a proper nap, _not_ Antrayk venom induced. And maybe she’d write down a couple of instruction manuals after that. “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

* * *

She took a step back, away. Turned around (due South; one of this planet’s twin suns set at this hour, and it was flooding the sky with gold and orange streaks, somehow dimmer than the Master’s eyes). Took a step away, then another. “Good,” she said. “I’ll see you around then, shall I?” 

The Master screamed at her. “I’ll be taking this. And this,” she said, pocketing the TCE and the compressed Meep, and throwing his coat over him. “I’d stop screaming. Hope you parked in a good spot, I’d hate for the Meep to find you after how I left them.”

“Doctor!” the Master shouted. She ignored that, too, and sonic’d his restraints. He was shaking now.

“That should go down in about... ten minutes? More or less. Maybe more, but no longer than an hour.” She checked the sonic, then waved. “See ya!” The Master was still screaming her name when she hopped back into the TARDIS and shut the doors behind her. Inside, the display was turned to the doors so she could see him, shaking where he stood, restraints slowly loosening (she’d said no more than an hour, but she knew it wouldn’t be longer than a few minutes; just enough for her to be gone), fists clenching and unclenching.

Would the rage go out of his body when she left? Or would he stay that way, furious even though she was gone? He changed so fast she didn’t know what was show and what was real (she was a bit like that herself, too, this time. Funny, that). 

The TARDIS took off. His eyes dimmed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks tons for all the lovely comments, and i hope this made sense despite the back-and-forthiness!! please leave a kudos or comment if you've got here and didn't hate it!!
> 
> next up: the doctor goes master-baiting (...im so sorry)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor tests a theory.

Once, when she was a Scottish professor of astrophysics (had it been astrophysics? She’d talked quite a bit about it. She’d talked quite a bit about time as well, but she didn’t _think_ humans had temporal geometry in 21st century universities. Did they?) Bill had asked her to promise he wouldn’t get her killed. She hadn’t promised that, but she had said she’d try _within reason_.

Bill wasn’t dead. She knew that. She was off in space somewhere with her puddle-girlfriend, probably. Maybe she even checked back in on earth from time to time. 

But.

This was the problem: no one thought they were going to die until they _did_. That was the thing about danger, wasn’t it? It was never serious until, suddenly, surprise! Now it was dangerous. And _that_ was the history of her. One day you were skipping around time and space, watching a new year party here, flirting with historical figures and accidentally having royal consort portraits painted there, and the _next_ you were stranded on an impossible planet about to be sucked into a black hole. Or, _or_ , maybe you’d go on a nice picnic, just for a relaxing day out,—and then Weeping Angels would get you, pulling you back through time, leaving you there forever. 

Snap: there went your life. 

Her friends didn’t know that. She did. Remembering this was _her_ responsibility. And if she didn’t take that responsibility, then did she deserve to—

* * *

Ryan ran across the room, throwing her the modulator before disappearing out of sight. She barely managed to catch it in between dodging shots, shouting as one of the Garvantine swiped at her leg, trying to get her. She was faster than that, though. Good runner, her. Sonic between her teeth, she began pulling the rod apart ( _really_ old model, but luckily for her she was a fan of antiques) looking for the magnifying component. 

Just as she’d got it and began setting it up, she ran around a corner toward the control room, and ran right into—a Garvantine holding one of the humans on board by the neck. 

“Stop right there, Doctor,” he hissed, and she stopped, raising her hands slowly. 

“Put her down,” she said, letting the sonic drop from her mouth and catching it on her foot. She looked the girl (Byra?) in the eyes, trying to convey a sense of ‘don’t worry, you may be suspended in the air at the moment, but I’ve got a plan’ without, you know, making it obvious enough for the Garv. 

The Garvantine hissed at her, keeping his grip on the girl’s neck intact. “You are surrounded, Doctor. I would advise you _not_ to try anything.”

“Try anything? What makes you think I’m gonna try anything? I’m not a big trier.” She was rambling. Oh, why did she wear _shoes?_ This would be much easier if her toes were out and about; she had pretty flexible toes. She might switch to sandals. She began to bend, and the Garvantine’s gun began to power up. “Mind if I put this down? It’s a bit heavier than I’d thought.” She put the modulator down and started to slip the sonic up her sleeve. The Garvantine’s eye stalks straightened. 

“I thought I told you not to try anything. Take away her weapon,” he hissed at one of the others. The green Garv grabbed the sonic from her hands. She stuck her tongue out at him.

“At least put the girl down _now_.” The guards all kept their guns up, clearly not taking any chances. That was alright; she already had what she needed; it would help, though, if Byra wasn’t hovering in the air in a few seconds. “I mean, you’re all so... tall. It’s fine for you, I’m not judging, but you’re probably frightening her half to death carrying her around like that.” 

“Cease talking!” the Garvantine leader hissed. He was probably trying to shout, but his vocal structure didn’t really permit it. At her feet, the modulator beeped. 

The Doctor shrugged. “I would, it’s just, you’re not doing what _I_ ask you, so why should I return the favour? Don’t worry, dear, acrophobia’s a pretty common in all corners of the universe, you know,” she told the girl. If she’d got the right setting, the modulator would have sent a signal to Ryan too— “But, not to worry! If you’re ever falling from a great height, you can just—bend your knees!” —which meant he should be setting off the alarm just about—

A dull keening sounded at the very end of her auditory range, just low enough to make her nose wrinkle. Every Garvantine in the room dropped to their knees abruptly, one of them shrieking rather painfully. The leader had dropped Byra in the confusion, and she grabbed her hand, picked up her sonic, and took off, past the corridors and back to the arrivals chamber. A shot flew _just_ over her head, but she didn’t look back to see who was responsible—probably a Garv with better self-control or weaker ears than the others. “Did you bend your knees?” she asked Byra.

Byra continued to look terrified, and didn’t respond.

At the control center, several Garvantine were knocked out on the ground, their eyelids fluttering. Byra ran towards one of them, capturing the older woman in a big hug. The Doctor smiled, and looked around. Yaz was shepherding the other humans towards the demat points, a big Garvantine blaster in her hands. The Doctor glared at her. Yaz huffed. “What? I wasn’t going to use it, just making sure none of them tried anything.”

She grabbed the gun from her hands and dropped it onto the ground. “Is everyone here safe?”

The humans who hadn’t already left thanked them and went on their way, back to their ships. She joined them on the way to the demat chamber, waving at Byra, who waved back this time, clearly more comfortable now she was with her mother. “Wasn’t there another chamber here?” she asked. Yaz didn’t seem to know what she was talking about, but then, she’d been the one leading the Garvantine down a goose chase, and had run down the corridors a few times. There were two more chambers on the other side, too, and only smooth wall where she thought another chamber had been. 

She shook the odd feeling off. Paranoid. 

Ryan and Graham appeared from the control center, Ryan all puffed up and properly pleased—fair enough, he _had_ just about saved the lot of them from imminent death, she supposed. While Graham said goodbye to an older human who’d been hiding in the control center, she checked on one of the knocked out Garvantine on the ground.

“Out cold. Should wake back up in an hour or two. They might have a headache for a day, but otherwise they should be fine. Mostly.” She’d amplified the alarm _very_ high to make sure it was definitely out of human hearing range, but not high enough to burst any eardrums. 

She led the way back to the TARDIS, smiling when she saw her box. Behind her, Ryan was bragging. “You should’ve seen me, I was great! Tossed that modulator to the Doctor, straight into her hands, ran right back to the control center. Graham would’ve been lost without me.” Graham and Yaz laughed, and she turned back to shoot them a grin. When she turned back to open the doors, something sat on the TARDIS knob.

Balanced ever-so-carefully on the round knob sat a miniature Garvantine. Her breath caught for a second, and she stilled, spreading her mind, but—no. No one. All the humans were gone, and— _oh_. Missing chamber.

Behind her, Yaz was laughing, and Graham was telling Ryan off. They were all fine. She was fine, too. She slipped the compressed Garvantine into her sleeve, opened the TARDIS door, and slipped inside.

* * *

She told them she’d be back in an hour, or a day at _most_. This had _nothing_ to do with her and everything to do with the TARDIS refusing to land properly, that was all. Besides, you couldn’t aim too close to when you’d left, paradoxes and all that. Didn’t want to land before she’d even left. She waited until they’d left, then kick-started into action.

The Alliance wars had seen far too many soldiers fighting on planets and systems that had no connection to the Alliance, even planets that were meant to be under galactic protection, having not yet discovered space travel. There were battles over mining rights for planets that weren’t supposed to be touched for centuries still, battles for footholds, even just battles for pettiness and ego. Dordlis IV was one of those, as an unfortunate consequence of being home to one of the rarer minerals on that side of the galaxy. 

She got between some soldiers and a settlement they wanted to raid, too small to even call a proper city, and then waited.

Once she was in the prison, she called out, both out loud and telepathically. “I know you’re here!”

No response, but that was because she was imprisoned for the moment. Nothing her sonic couldn’t fix, of course. She was just waiting for him to show his face before she got out. She _knew_ he was here. She had sensed it in the minutes before she was captured, felt the change in the air. That was _why_ she’d gotten herself captured.

“You saved us on the Garvantine ship, didn’t you? Why’d you do that? If you wanted to thank me about the Meeps you could’ve just said so!” Outside, a guard shouted at her to be silent. She ignored her. “I can sense you, I know you’re here! Where are you?”

* * *

_Contact_.

Nothing. No response. She grunted, hefting the paperweight into place so no one could get in. She’d lost her sonic into one of the vats, would have to make a new one later. It was a shame, but she had a proper list of improvements to add to the sonic that she’d been putting off for _ages_ , and she could take the chance to get to those. 

“Right, that should keep them out for now.” There was no response, of course. She’d grown to expect that, since he hadn’t replied to her _once_. She knew he was there, though; it was a feeling that was growing increasingly familiar. Something in the air, or in her time sense, or at the back of her mind. How had she missed it with O?

Maybe because she knew he was here. “Come _on_ , Master, show yourself!” she shouted as she climbed out of the window. “It’s not like you not to take credit for your work! And you’re doing _such_ a good job!” 

* * *

_"Why are you saving my life_ ?” she shouted into the air. Her mental voice was turned up so high she was fairly sure she was giving all low-level telepaths on the planet a headache, but if _someone_ would stop following her around and dropping off souvenirs and getting her out of trouble when she got herself in it, she wouldn’t _have_ to scream into his brain! One of the humans looked at her oddly, and she shook it off, climbing the mountain. It was a nice place, this. Mountains covered in purple grass (ish), trains of long trailing flowers from every tree, moons creating a brilliant panorama in the skies. After she’d made sure it was free of Sontarans, she could bring the fam—

She stopped, shook her head, and yelled into the sky, “Why are you doing this, Master? Why won’t you just _show yourself_?”

* * *

Once (or was it twice? She could’ve sworn she’d heard this more than once), when she was younger and less responsible, a friend of hers had told her not to be alone. She needed someone, she’d said, to tell her when to stop. Or had she asked her how long she’d been alone? Maybe she’d been joking.

She wasn’t alone, though. 

Before—before Gallifrey, when her friends had been more casual about leaving her for a few hours even when she hadn’t _specifically_ dropped them off, she’d spent what felt like endless amounts of time with another feeling. _Talking to herself_. She’d open her mouth, and words would come out, introductions and explanations and cheers and _let’s check it out_ , and she’d be met with nothing, because she was _alone_. On her own. Lonesome. In solitude. With no one around her. One of those things. 

After, she’d done her very best to rid herself of that feeling by spending more time by herself. In that state of solitude. Learning to enjoy the pleasure of her own company. Not depending on having someone _there_. She’d done that in the past, too; retiring herself, to travelling alone because she didn’t deserve more friends or to a cloud in the sky because she couldn’t lose anyone else, or to a university, because she had the weight of responsibility on her shoulders.

What was her purpose this time? To make responsible decisions?

It hadn’t really worked. She kept turning her head, expecting to see Ryan looking at things with interest, or get some remark from Graham, or see Yaz running somewhere with that look in her eyes that said _this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me_ when it _wasn’t_ —and no one would be there.

Alone. On her own. Lonesome. In solitude. With no one around her.

This, though. She’d thought it would be similar, or even _worse_ , that she was yelling at someone who never replied... but it wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t that she was alone, not really. Besides, it wasn’t as though she could take her friends to him.

* * *

It was one of Ryan’s friends’ birthdays, and Yaz was invited too, so it was just her and Graham for the day. She’d offered to leave him alone, give him some time to meet his own friends, but he’d said no. “Let’s have a little chat, shall we?” 

So here she was, sat on his rather dusty couch with a mug of chocolate and Graham cleaning up behind her, his own chocolate cooling on his coffee table. Was that still a coffee table if it didn’t have any coffee? It _was_ , she supposed, if a duck pond was still a duck pond without any ducks. “D’you think it's called a coffee table because it’s _made_ of coffee?”

No, that didn’t sound right.

Graham ignored her question (rude! She could have been onto something!) and finally sat down, looking a bit more grim and awkward than she was used to. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked, leaning forward. Was it something to do with that concern he’d posed to her all those months ago, or something else? Or was this the moment Graham told her that he was ready to retire now—well, retire from the time travelling life, he was already retired from his day job? Or was it—

“I should be asking you that, Doc.”

The Doctor blinked. “What’s wrong with me? I’m peachy!” 

“Oh, don’t give us that. You’ve been off for weeks now and you know it. Especially since that time you fainted.”

“How do you mean?” she tried. 

Graham was still talking. “You’ve been dropping us home more often, for one,” he said. She winced; caught out. She’d considered often that her friends were just too polite to say it when she wasn’t at her best. Sure, they pointed it out from time to time—less now that she was _trying_ to be more honest with them, but for the most part they said nothing. She was never sure whether she was just that good, which was a _distinct_ possibility (besides, humans were so... distractable. New planet, new species, new world, and all was forgotten, for the moment, anyway. Or was that her? Maybe it was both), or if they were just being nice and letting her wallow in peace.

Graham was still talking. “You say you’ll be back in an hour, and sometimes you are, but you look like you’ve been gone for days, maybe more.”

“Alright,” she said, “you’re right.” She leaned back, pulling her legs onto the couch. “But it’s not that something’s _wrong_. I’m... testing a theory.” 

“A theory?” 

“Yes. And it’s something I need to do on my own.” 

Graham frowned. “Is it something you can’t talk about? Something to do with—all the Gallifrey stuff that you told us about?” She’d told them what she knew about _that_ part of it a few weeks after she’d gone back to them, explained that she wasn’t who she thought she was, but not much more than that. And it wasn’t because she wasn’t being honest! But—she didn’t know much more herself, and she didn’t want to talk about most of what she’d seen in the Matrix, Tecteun, the Children, until she knew more about it herself. And she also didn’t want to talk about it, or think about it, ever. 

She _could_ tell him that it was about that—that was personal—and he’d probably understand. He was the understanding type, more than Yaz or Ryan were; effect of age and experience, she supposed. But...

“It’s not that,” she paused. Telling him it had to do with the Master meant telling him that she knew the Master was alive, was out there, that she’d left him alive more than once. (That he’d saved her life.) “It’s... a dangerous project. More than our usual level of danger. And _I_ can regenerate. If I get poisoned, I can heal, restart my heart. But you can’t. And, worse, if something goes wrong and you lot get stranded on some alien planet—”

Graham frowned. “Hang on, now. You aren’t endangering yourself on purpose, are you, Doc?”

She shook her head. “I’m not! I promise, that isn’t it. I’m testing a theory, that’s all.”

Graham stared at her, as if trying to read the truth on her face. She tried to keep any guilt off it, but she wasn’t the best at obscuring her feelings this time around. In the end, he sighed, looking away. “I trust you, Doc. Just promise me that you aren’t putting yourself in unnecessary danger for no reason.”

She nodded with all the enthusiasm she could muster. “I’m not, I promise.” 

* * *

So there were at _least_ nineteen people chasing her, a giant slug-slash-trash-compactor-slash-androidganic that was trying to eat them (and it was _not her fault_ ), which meant she’d run through pretty much every room there was to run through, and the tiny tiny _tiny_ ship was entirely sealed; in theory, no one who shouldn’t be here was here. Except her, of course. She didn’t count with these things. _But_ on at least two separate occasions, she’d seen a flash of something in the corner of her eye that was gone before she could turn her head to look, which was just _really_ uncool.

“Why would you perception filter _me_?” she shouted. Something clanged behind her, but when she turned around, there was nothing. She huffed. “I thought you wanted my attention, Master.”

Something else clanged. She turned around—was he—but, no. It was coming from further away, a room, maybe two; the people chasing her. “Right, then,” she said, “best save myself if you’re not here! I am pretty good at that! Or maybe, maybe you _are_ , and you’ll have no option but to _show your face_ in a mo!” 

Or maybe this whole thing was a reverse psychology trap, a way to make her believe he was going to save her life, only to abandon her at the last moment, leaving her to die. He did that. She wasn’t much for that, though, which meant she had to _think_. There were nineteen angry people chasing her, a giant slug _thing_ with seemingly no external weak, and she’d run through pretty much every room on this tiny, tiny ship, and the Master not showing himself. so, really. Just one thing to do.

She ran to the slug-thing’s chamber, and jumped down its throat.

* * *

There was a compressed Vardian on the TARDIS doors. She grabbed it in her fist, but it was fairly dense matter—not particularly crush-able. She tossed it into one of the hidden compartments under the console, and it landed with a clatter into the small and growing pyramid of souvenirs from the Master.

It was, she consoled herself, at _least_ better than trying to look for a Zygon in a haystack—or a Zygon in an anything stack. She knew what the Master looked like, she knew how to find him, and her methods _were_ sort of working, by some definition of working. She knew he was around her, and doing _something_ to hide his mental presence (though, she supposed, she could just be bad at spotting him this time. She hadn’t realised O was the Master for _embarrassingly_ long), and not responding to any of her texts (metaphorically; she wasn’t going to text him like they were mates _now,_ see, O, embarrassing periods of time, etc.), and _yet_ for some reason he was acting very much like a person who did _not_ want to be left alone by repeatedly saving her life!

“If I accidentally poison myself in the TARDIS, you’re going to have to come here, Master!” she shouted. The TARDIS gave her a light jolt. She sighed. “Sorry.”

She pulled her hoodie off, hanging it up and heading toward the cliff gardens. “It’s so stupid,” she muttered. “Why bother? When it was just once, I would’ve assumed it was because of the Meep thing. But he keeps _doing_ it.” There was no response, as she was alone. She huffed, kicking at the cliff wall. “Why can’t he just say whatever he wants to say?”

The TARDIS gave her a telepathic pat on the head. “Yeah, yeah, I get it, you know everything including what he’s doing. Why aren’t you angry at him? He converted you to a _paradox machine_. Remember that?”

The grass rustled under her palm. She shrugged. “No, I know, I know. I’ll find him, though. I don’t know what he’s doing, but—I have to find him. And then...” The TARDIS didn’t reply this time. Quite possibly, she didn’t know what the Doctor would do, either. It was easier when she hadn’t _really_ been looking, with the Meeps. She could pretend it didn’t matter that it was just the two of them, that she didn’t know what she wanted, that she was angry and sad and a little less put-together than she’d said back on Gallifrey. That every time she thought of home, she thought of him now. 

Somehow, the Master had managed to tie every thought of Gallifrey back to himself. Even when they’d been the last two of their kind (the last time), he hadn’t managed that. But now—every time she thought of Gallifrey, of home, he was there. Making it something it had never been (or maybe always been), destroying it in every sense.

And, by association—making her something she’d never been, and destroying her, all in the same blow. 

“I’ll find him,” she said, “And then we’ll see.” 

* * *

She took them to see the birth of a star.

* * *

There was an army of cybermen at her back, and the Master before her. 

He said, “Honey, I’m home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the cliffhanger BUT if you want to yell abt that i will be very happy  
> any kind of feedback is ♥! 
> 
> also, i DO believe the next chapter will be the last chapter, so, here's hoping i still think that after i write it!!!

**Author's Note:**

> LOOK i know the master isn't here yet even though that's the second tagged character: that is because this is a thoschei fic. i promise it is, okay? the doctor just has some thinking to do before that (also this is very all over the place PARDON ME i am trying to make some points but the doctor's inner monologue is very very difficult to make a point with. mostly because shes in deep the-nile and doesn't know how to swim)
> 
> ALSO: the poem in the chapter is 'the void' by g.m. muktibodh. in fact,. everyone should read it because it is very good. BUT, though the doctor can relate to that (at least at that moment) - that is not the tone i'm trying to set, not for this fic, though it would be a great tone-setter for anything focused on the master
> 
> also also: i posted this preemptively instead of when i was done writing it because its late at night so if its bad when its finished, that's on me (11th of march) pls do not blame future me (who has finished writing this) (in other words chapter 1 may be edited after i finish writing chapter 2 because FOR SOME REASON in 2020 i still do not have perfect vision or hindsight)
> 
> okay that's all for now comments r my regeneration energy n kudos r my...artron energy? idk science man xoxo


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